Not only is this rare LP one of
Herbie Mann's own favorites, it is one of the most moving classical/jazz fusions ever recorded. Right after the 1968 Berlin Jazz Days festival,
Mann, his quintet, co-composer/conductor
William Fischer, and a team of 80 Berlin musicians entered Teldec studios to record the huge, ambitious title piece, a concerto that successfully spans the decades from
Tchaikovsky to
Stockhausen, and from New Orleans to free jazz. With some stretches of group improvisation, the piece has structure, memorable yet surprisingly simple motifs, and holds together even when stretched to the limits of coherence by general outbreaks of freeform. To fill out the album,
Mann and
Fischer came up with three chamber pieces that if anything are even more successful than the main course. The best of the lot, the wistful "My Little Ones" (written for
Mann's children), contains what is perhaps
Mann's most haunting solo on record, at once loving and soaring, backed perfectly by
Fischer's economical writing for double string quartet. ~ Richard S. Ginell